gerous and improper as it is painful to receive: Very seldom is minute and detailed information of a certain kind necessary to acquaint the pastor well with his position. Let him show a repugnance, and, if necessary, let him positively refuse to hear them, and people will be sufficiently admonished and instructed to keep them to themselves. I except the case in which it is important to know every thing, in order to prevent or remedy an evil. It is, however, necessary always that the pastor respect himself; and charity alone may persuade him to descend into the impure region of vice..

IV. The Poor.-The Sovereign Pastor cared for the poor, and has given, as a principal characteristic of his Church, compassion for the unfortunate, and care to restore equality by charity. The apostles, in partially devolving the care of the poor on deacons, did not renounce this interest, with which we every where see them engaged; the deacons, moreover, are ministers of religion; and thus the care of the poor also remains a religious ministry. There are now no deacons in the special sense, or, rather, every Christian is a deacon; as, however, nothing is regulated by this consideration, and probably never will be, what for a time has been detached from the evangelical ministry rightfully returns to it, and the pastor is a deacon.

So he will always be under all institutions, because his ministry is essentially the ministry of compassion, and this ministry can not separate itself from the sentiment which is, in fact, its foundation: For, while showing itself indifferent to the temporal miseries of men, it can not show itself moved by their spiritual miseries. Public sentiment always assigns. this two-fold end to the Christian ministry.

A pastor is not only called to exercise a ministry of beneficence, but to propagate and maintain the spirit of beneficence. For this reason, he must not only give an example of benefibut he must promote it, and form it in all his parish

cence,

ioners without distinction of class, and I will even say of fortune. We ought to "bear one another's burdens" (Gal., vi., 2); and this measure, which ought to be the motto and the soul of every society, should be exemplified by the pastor before every man's door. Great, indeed, will be his success if he can make the rich receive and obey it; but he will do yet more if he can persuade the poor that it concerns them also, and that they have the means of obeying it. Associations may be well, and even necessary; but the pastor must be careful that they do not absorb personal activity and responsibility: It is needful that "the poor and the rich should meet together."-Prov., xxii., 2.

As to the direct care of the needy, the pastor ought himself to inquire into the situation and resources of each. The spirit of detail, the industry of beneficence, is what makes it truly useful; it is also what causes it to be respected; it likewise gives the beneficent man authority with those whom he comforts. We must listen with patience to complaints and narratives, endure a little ennui, enter into human nature, and remind ourselves by our own experience that, “in relating our sorrows, we often assuage them."* In this sphere of activity we meet with so many deceptions, so much baseness, we see so much of human nature under a hideous aspect, that we are in danger of losing the respect which we owe it even in its abject condition. Let the pastor put in the first rank of his cares that of elevating the spirit and the courage of the poor; of inducing him to seek his resources in himself, of maintaining and guarding the sentiment of his dignity, of showing him in his poverty all the respect to which he has a right, or which he is able to appreciate.

It is required by charity itself, and even by regard to real necessities, that we turn away from necessities which are imaginary, or which arise from indolence and selfishness. Let us beware that we do not engender poverty by the very * CORNEILLE: Polyeuchte, act i., scene 3.

pains by which we seek to destroy it. Let us acquaint ourselves with those inflexible laws which arise from the nature of things in the whole of a population, and let us have them. before our mind in every particular case, since a particular case does remind us of them, and may also tend to make us forget them.

Our concern that no one should doubt our personal beneficence should not make us connive at an idea which is creditable in certain parishes, that every case, without discrimination, is to be undertaken by the pastor or his family. Let us know how to keep importunity and indelicacy in order.

Let us not appear to desire payment for aid which we may give under demonstrations of piety; nor to induce the belief that we succor the body only that we may have access to the soul. In our first approaches, let us be moderate in our religious communications.*

The good which the pastor himself can do is very small compared with that which he can do by means of others. He is the delegate of the poor to the rich, and of the rich to the poor. The first function is delicate and difficult. He must expect refusals, affronts. A sublime trait (that of a pastor who, receiving an insult from an impatient rich man, said to him, "See, this is for myself, what now have you for my poor ?") should often be in the memory of pastors. We should, however, do wrong not to consider the difference of situations and antecedent demands. We must know how to withdraw in a proper manner; we must engage the rich in the details of the case which we represent to him; get him to make the investigation of this misery his own affair; ask

* Beneficence has become an art, the principal rules of which have become popular. On this subject there are important works which we must not omit reading; as, in French, the book on Charity of M. DUCHATEL; that of M. NAVILLE on the same subject; Le Visiteur du Pauvres, by M. DE GERANDO; in English, The Civil and Charitable Economy of Great Cities, by Dr. CHALMERS.

him for something better than money; do not urge him too earnestly to give; be content when he gives; resigned, and not out of humor, when he does not give; but in every case discharge this mission with as much of liberty as of modesty and delicacy. To be ashamed would be to renounce one of the most beautiful parts of the ministry, and to prepare ourselves for refusals.

SPECIAL DECLENSION, ETC.

801

[CHAPTER III.

By the Translator.

Of the Care of Souls in Times of special Declension and special Interest in Religion.

AFTER much reflection, we venture, though tremblingly, to add a chapter on this subject.

In this part of his work the author has not only transcended his predecessors, but, admirably as he had executed the other parts, he has, we think, transcended himself also: And yet there is here (what doubtless will be regarded, especially in this country, as an important omission) no distinct consid-. eration of the care of souls, as modified justly by the two specialities in the state of the flock which we have indicated. These specialities, though perhaps more observable and more prominent under certain modes of pastoral activity, certain views of théology, and certain external circumstances, than others, have their ground in the nature of man as at best imperfectly renewed, the laws of the new life under the economy of grace, and the circumstances of trial and exposure in which churches find themselves while they remain in this world. They are not necessary; they violate the ideal of Christian sanctification, which excludes all change except that of increase; but probably they will continue until the triumph of Christianity is complete, and the advance of Christianity in the future be as it has been from the beginning, chiefly, as Edwards has said, by "remarkable communications of the Spirit of God at special seasons of mercy." Neither in individuals nor in masses does the spiritual life remain always in the same state; in both it is alternately high and low, and the elevations and depressions are not un